Project: Belgium/French Naming Convention for Belgian profiles

Categories: Belgium Project | Name Field Guidelines | Belgium Genealogy Resources

Contents 1 French Naming Convention for Belgian profiles 1.1 Regional and historical situation 1.1.1 Aristocrats 1.2 Prefixes 1.3 Suffix 1.4 Last Name at birth and other Family Names 1.5 No ALL CAPS surnames 1.6 No backwards projection / Caution with chains of prepositional ancestors 1.7 No concatenation 1.8 No preposition as middle name 1.9 No abbreviation of prepositions 1.10 No exclusion of prepositions 1.11 Capitalization of prepositions 1.12 (Flemish) Patronymics and naming pattern 1.12.1 Patronyms vs. spousal names 1.13 "dit" or "dites" names 1.14 First Name, Middle Name and Preferred Name 1.14.1 Forenames, or Prénoms 1.14.2 Multiple first names= 1.14.3 Preferred name, or Prénom usuel 1.14.4 Hyphenated names 1.14.5 Middle names 1.14.6 Gender of given names

French Naming Convention for Belgian profiles

This project subpage is inspired by the Flemish Naming convention - page, so some parts might be reproduced from that source, or from its French equivalents this reference acknowledges the CC copyright of those pages, this French Naming Convention for Belgian profiles explains naming en spelling conventions for the Last Name at Birth (LNAB), other surnames, first- and middle-names of profiles and for topological placenames that are in the Belgium Project.

Regional and historical situation

These profiles are ancestors who most commonly descend from Flanders, the northern region of the country that is currently known as ‘‘‘Belgium’’’ (since its independence in 1830), and was formerly

• 1815-1830: “The kingdom of the Netherlands”
• 1804-1814: Zuidelijke of Nederlanden, "Southern Netherlands" during the Napoleontic “French Empire” ,
• 1795-1804: Les 9 Départements (réunis) during the French first republic,
• 1715-1795: "Austrian Netherlands" during occupation of the Habsburg Empire of Austria and Hungary
• 1585-1714: “Spanish Netherlands” under Spanish Habsburg occupation,
• 1482-1585: "Habsburg Netherlands" under the reign of the Habsburg Maximilian and Emperor Charles V, and during that Habsburg period from 1543-1585 part of “The United provinces of the Netherlands”

• and various other designations before 1485, split in several feudal counties and duchies with denominations referring to :
• the County of Flanders , west of the river Scheldt, the Count of Flanders had allegiance to the King of France;
• the Duchy of Brabant , east of the river Scheldt and in the north all the way up to the Waal and Lek rivers in the contemporary Netherlands, the Duke of Brabant had allegiance to the Dukes of Burgundy and were linked to the Habsburgs;
• the Prince-Bishopric of Liege in the east around the Meuse river.
  

See the for Belgium Topological naming convention for an historical overview.

Belgium : Map of linguistic territories

Contemporary Belgium is astride on a linguistic border with Flemish-speakers in the north and Walloon- or French speakers in the south and a Germanophone minority in the region of Eupen-Malmedy in the east, Brussels is a bi-lingual (Dutch-French) region.

This page is about the French naming conventions, used in the south of Belgium, the french speaking Wallonia , by and large.

Aristocrats

These naming conventions do not apply to French aristocrats, use the Name Fields for European Aristocrats naming conventions.

Prefixes

Use the prefix field for

• Academic titles as Docteur, Prof.
• Military ranks such as Colonel, Général.
• Clergy titles such as Cardinal, Eveque.

Do not use it for noble titles : such as Seigneur, Comte, Marquis, Prince etc. should go into the nickname field.

Suffix

This field will rarely be used for French people. French people in general do not use Junior or I, II, III ordinals.

Last Name at birth and other Family Names

The spelling of family names or surnames was not definitively fixed before the middle of the 19th century. At this point however it became very strict, and errors were always officially corrected, which can be seen in the records.

The LNAB field should be filled with family name or surname as spelled on the birth certificate as entered in the Civil Registry. Failing that document either the baptism record, marriage record or death certificate can be used ( in that order of priority), before the birth, marriage or death certificates of children that also can be used to determine the LNAB. If documents were made in other localities the spelling might might change. Put spelling variants in the Other Last Names field or in the Notes field if different sources use different names.

in case of the patronymics, these of course can be compared to and if needed proven by one of the earliest versions mentioned in church records.

When people moved to another city (many protestants moved to the Netherlands during the contra-reformation) distinguishing names could be added these names should go in current names.

WikiTree has a general style naming guide for LNAB, which covers the issue of Surname prepositions, particles, and prefixes but the first principle should be Use their convention instead of ours.

No ALL CAPS surnames

The WikiTree Name Fields style guide section makes it clear - It is never appropriate to use ALL CAPS. Unfortunately the practice of using ALL CAPS Surnames has become a work around throughout the Internet genealogy and wherever family trees are found. The practise dates back to an early era of Internet bulletin boards, when query posts needed to make sure the surnames stand out, in order for researchers to quickly scan the lists for their one-name studies of surnames of interest. But laziness and bad practice meant that people made a habit of simply copying the names, caps and all, directly into their trees. And then those computerized trees were propagated, and uploaded into GEDCOMs, and from those into all sorts of Internet tree sites.

But on a proper genealogical site like WikiTree, they are an eyesore, and a falsehood, and so they are rightly banned. Any profile that has a LNAB in all caps should be changed or merged away.

However, on a rare occasion, other matching profiles may be in even worse form, or the manager is not readily available to make the change. So a few of these all caps profiles may persist for a time.

No backwards projection / Caution with chains of prepositional ancestors

This is a very common error, and one that is a bit more difficult to spot. Researchers often make bad assumptions, and consequently the software developers make the same mistake : when creating a descendant the user is presented with that father family name by default, this coding has been repeated when creating an ancestor profile and this the software presents the user with an incorrect default name for the ancestor profile. For instance, many ancestors down the male line into old Europe have been presumed to have the same surname as a modern descendant. In cases where the projection is an obvious falsehood, the profile should be changed or merged away.

For example, Van Cortrycke’' ou de Courtrai could be the surname for multiple generations of ancestors living in your area, of that lineage the earliest ancestor immigrated from the city of Courtrai. The ‘‘van’’ or "de" preposition would typically be recorded by authorities for the migrant who had moved from that city. However the (first) migrant's ancestors who had stayed behind in Courtrai would not have had that place designation in their family name .

However they might have surnames referring to their fathers or a distinctive feature like the hunchback or a large nose or to a buidlings in the village “du Moulin”, or to a specific profession like forgeron, tonnelier, cordonnier etc.

No concatenation

These errors are very common among profiles, and in the oldest generations they are always wrong. Often caused by the aural declaration to the registrar. A father or another family member presented himself to the Registrar’s office usually the town hall (the Mairie) sometimes alone, sometimes supported by a co-worker, a friend, an in-law or a family member to declare the happy birth or sad death. For the birth that person would present himself with a newborn infant to show the Registrar, for a death with a witness. Then the "déclarant (as he was formally referred to) would tell the Registrar, sometimes in a very festive or with an alcohol slurred voice, who de newborn or deceased was, and provide details as requested by the Registrar. This aural exchange of data was entirely due to people lacking paperwork about their identity, about their civil status, their spouse and family and of course because of widespread illiteracy. The Civil Registrar had in the best of cases the means (registers) to search for the correct spelling of names, but often some educated guesswork could result in a more hap-hazardous result, and then the chances of getting it wrong dramatically increased. While LNAB spelling changes over generations in official registers, the errors are often visible in the registers for registrations of the same person in his lifespan (BMD records).

But more often than not, they are the result of erroneous propagation, either intentionally or inadvertently. Copying, indexing and digitising documents, could induce faulty concatenations that might be due to misinterpreted or illegible handwriting.

Do not use the mixed caps style (DuPont, LeMarchand....) this style is not used in France. In general, concatenated LNAB profiles should be merged away, when better options are available.

No preposition as middle name

The WikiTree name guideline for prepositions in the middle name field is a good guideline to follow on this point for Belgian Roots ancestors - At no time should these prefixes be included as a middle name nor abbreviated.

No abbreviation of prepositions

The same example from the WikiTree general guideline should also be followed in all and Belgian Roots cases to disallow any preposition abbreviation, such as those names starting with Saint”. Saint, St, St. : If the family name starts with "Saint", write it in full. Do not use "St.". Use the hyphen if it is in the records. These abbreviated notations are merely modern shortcuts, and are thus falsehoods to be merged away.

No exclusion of prepositions

The WikiTree general guideline noted above state that care must be exercised to ensure surnames that use a particle, prefix, or preposition, such as Le, La, De, Du, Den, Der, Van, Van Der, Van den, Ten, 't, Zum, etc. correctly reflect the spacing and capitalisation used in the individual's name when they were alive. This part is precisely appropriate and relevant for surnames with Belgian roots.

BUT, the guideline then states that for medieval and earlier profiles (stated as birth dates earlier than 1600) [sic], the standard for 'le', 'la, 'de' and 'du' is to NOT include them in the Last Name at Birth (LNAB) field, but to rather include them in the Current Last Name field. This part of the guideline is precisely WRONG for ancestors with Belgian roots.

Capitalization of prepositions

Capitalising the first letter of the preposition(s), as in “Du Moulin” rather than “du Moulin”, is a classic difference between Dutch and Belgian surnames, and a frequent source of errors and confusion among researchers.

Note: Belgian surnames are written as recorded in the population register. , the lower case prepositions as in “du Moulin” are - in Belgium - most commonly used in aristocratic family names.

Here lies the source of a common misunderstanding because they ignore the linguistic reasons behind this. The prepositions in names such as "van", "van den", "van der", or de du de la etc. are descriptors of origin, meaning "from," or "from the" the significant part of the name might be a geographical or topological reference or refer to an occupation or to another person. Even in modern language it does not make sense to capitalize such prepositions, when describing a person as in "Jean de Amiens" or “Bartholomée le Tonnelier”. So these preposition parts of the surname could be lower case and upper case in France. The significant part (place name or occupation) starts with a capital.

de, du, de la, le... Sometimes these articles are separated from the rest of the name (ex. de la Rue, Le Roux) and sometimes they are all together (Delarue, Leroux). Again, this was not set before the middle of the 19th century. Use the style you see on the records.

There is another aspect especially in Belgium, this difference in capitalisation and the use of prepositions in surnames influences alphabetical list making, such as indexes in archives and phonebooks. The Dutch order their surnames according to the most significant part of the last name, the Belgians and the French to the full surname. However in the period before 1830 surnames with a preposition might be sorted under their significant part, and you might find “du Moulin” indexed under the "M" rather than de "D" .

(Flemish) Patronymics and naming pattern

Until the early 19th century, for most common folk in the Low Countries using a last name was no habit, especially not in rural areas. In de early medieval era royalty was known by their nicknames like Karel Martel (founder of the merovingian dynasty), the local feudal lords were named after their fiefs.

Common (rural) folk used the patronymic system : you would be identified by your first name and a reference to a parent first name (or an earlier very renowned ancestor), or identified by the parent's occupation/profession (blacksmith, cooper, miller, hurder etc), a particular building, location or topographic landmark, or any other distinguishing characteristic.

There also were people who did have a last name, but just occasionally used it, these people sometimes in archives were registered with this last name, but also sometimes with the patronymic.

In Belgium the Austrian Habsburg Emperor decided in the late 18th century among other things that Civil records should no longer be held by the church (Parochial, Baptism Marriage and Death records) but this function should be done by the public authorities.

In the Netherlands, in 1811, a familyname became mandatory and the people who did not already have such a last name, had to adopt one and officially register with the municipality. This lastname decree became mandatory in 1814 in Belgium too, and was maintained after the independence in 1830.

So from the early Middle Ages until the introduction of the civil status in the 19th century patronymics were used in person registration. The patronymic could be the only name, and from generation to generation change, but the patronymic could also be followed by a surname. Patronymics still exist in Iceland, on islands like Faroer or Shetland and in some parts of Norway and Sweden.

While in rural areas patronymic naming remained common, in the medieval cities family names were used in birth registration, even if they were etymologically patronymics, at least from the late 15th century onward. Example : in the city the children (descendants) of a father (or unmarried mother) called "Molenaers", would also be called "Molenaers".

Patronyms vs. spousal names

A patronym is the first name of the father, followed by a trailing group of letters. It designates the person as the child of the father.

Current Last Name for married women : a woman's legal name is, and always was, her maiden name and it is the name that is used on all records, including parish records as well as census records (up to the end of the 19th century). You can put the spousal name in the Current Last Name field if you are sure it is the name the person used in everyday life. Otherwise put the spousal name in the Other Last Names field, don´t assume that married women took their spousal name.

"dit" or "dites" names

Currently the Style Guide says 'dit' names should not be used in LNAB field and states that the 'dit' name can go in the Current Last Name, or in Other Last Name (i would avise not ot use the Nickname fields) as appropriate.

First Name, Middle Name and Preferred Name

Forenames, or Prénoms

All given names up to and including the preferred name should go in the Proper First Name field. If you do not know what the preferred name was (this will often be the case for 18th to mid-19th century profiles), put all given names in the Proper First Name field.

Multiple first names=

French speaking parents in Belgium generally named their first two sons and first two daughters after their own parents (the grandparents of the children). If a child died, very often the next child born of that sex was given the same name. The idea was that the fathers and mothers of the married couple needed to be honoured. If two children have the same name it is almost always true that the first one died (Germans, on the other hand, not uncommonly had more than one child by the same name in a family.)

Preferred name, or Prénom usuel

This is the name used in everyday life. For someone with multiple names, it can be very difficult to establish which was the preferred names. It is quite frequent that the preferred name is not one of the given names at birth at all. Starting from 1831, censuses may be very helpful.

Hyphenated names

in France common first names like Marie, Jean or Pierre would have a second name appended like Marie Jeanne, Jean Pierre or Pierre-Paul. Such French double names were often written hyphenated because they were used as a single name, however progressively registrars omitted the hyphen as they considered it illegitimate to use the hyphen ; the double name is not a middle name.

The use of hyphens changes from one record to another with the preferences of the clerks who wrote the records, and it is difficult to establish a clear guideline until about the 1940s, when compound names became very fashionable and the use of hyphens more systematic. A hyphenated name counts as just one name. Jean Baptiste is one name and the two parts of the name should not be in different fields.

Middle names

The concept of middle name is not known in Belgium, like it' s not in the Netherlands, Germany or France. The advice is not to use the middle name field, and to put all the names in the first name field (interpreting it as given names), the preferred name field would be used for the name the person uses in daily life. (cfr suggestion 749 ) That common first name could be a double name like Marie Jeanne or Jean Pierre ( obviously when hyphenated it would be one name) but it would be a de-latinised or Dutch name, in most cases "Franciscus" or “François” would use “Frans” or “Çois” as preferred name.

Gender of given names

Some names may look similar to Anglo-saxon names but don't have the same gender. Other names saw their use change over time. Here is a list of examples, to be completed:

• Claude, Dominique, Camille are used for both men and women.
• Laurence and Valentine are feminine , Laurent and Valentin are their male counterparts often names that have a male variant and a female variant with -e or -ine at the back .
• Jean is always male, jeane or jeanne are female
• Anne could be used for men (though it is predominantly female).
• Marie is often found as one of a man's given name, sometimes as first name, though it will rarely be the call name.
• Jean-Marie is a man's name.
• Marie-Josèphe is feminine. Marie-Joseph is indecise. In some areas ( Hainaut, Brabant, Namur), the name "Joseph" used to be included in all names, for boys and girls, well into the 19th century.
• The names Philippe, Eustache, Ambroise, Hilaire, Étienne, Antoine, and even Guillaume could be used for women up to the 18th century. They are now exclusively masculine.

This page was last modified 11:15, 7 February 2024. This page has been accessed 140 times.